But these anxieties were not his alone. "Deciphering a country's complexities and contradictions - let alone translating them into a medium that favours action, drama and confrontation - is a daunting and, at times, overwhelming task," writes Mike Chinoy, CNN's Hong Kong Bureau Chief, in his book China Live: Two Decades in the Heart of the Dragon. CNN contributor Garrick Utley adds fuel to the fear, referring to today's foreign reporter as "little more than a caption writer for the moving pictures", in his article "The Shrinking of Foreign News".

Foreign correspondents in our electronic age are feeling the tension between what Utley calls "broadcast and narrowcast". The superficial coverage fast-paced television demands is at war with the need to place conflict within its context. While TV gleans news as it happens - often bypassing its background - in-depth understanding from reporters about the society they are reporting on and an elephant-hair sensitivity to its culture may boost the print media towards more comprehensive, no-nonsense news.

This cuts out a new role for print reporters. "The new foreign correspondents", says Jeremy Lovell of Reuters in Cape Town, "are required to be experts in their field, whether it be politics, economics or international relations."

We're living in TV times

Former SABC foreign correspondent Jannie Botes describes today's foreign news as "quick and dirty", tailored for a fickle TV audience. While this dramatic, and at times superficial, painting of the facts could be seen as a healthy market-orientated adaptation to changing times, it breeds events-based journalism. Progress, peace and international trends are not presented as news.

"Front page international headlines of Africa are presented through a triangular prism of coups, crises and carnage," write Botes and Mary Swann of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Drama, propped up by cultural stereotypes and splattered with adventurous pictures, captivates TV audiences, and

print is battling to find its feet in this arena. Many globe-trotting reporters communicate through cultural clichés; then, editors and producers entrench stereotypes by slapping on sales-hungry headlines. It's quick, easy and user-friendly. Most of all, it sells.

"During the Balkan conflict, the international journalism pack sided with the Bosnians, even though there were atrocities committed by both sides. That was the frame in which they wrote. And it stuck," says Botes.

Techno-tainted correspondence

Technology has shrunk the world and quickened global communication. While this has many advantages for the foreign correspondent, it also has its drawbacks. Satellites linking reporters to their headquarters and to their spheres of interest allow them to operate over a much larger area. Many more cultures, histories and conflicts are compressed under a single journalist's umbrella, which forms a Western, sometimes colonialist "cultural frame" that shapes the storm of news.

"These days," says Time's African Correspondent, Peter Hawthorne, "there aren't that many foreign correspondents around, and if they are around, they tend to cover bigger areas. In the old days it was traditional to send guys out into, literally, 'darkest Africa', or be based all over the place. It was more of an adventure." Now, he explains, foreign correspondence is more "academic", placing the emphasis on distanced research rather than hands-on know-ledge.

A diffuse communication network has also resulted in what Utley refers to as "one-man journalism" in broadcasting. Thanks to technology, teamwork is less common: journalists "on the ground" are often mobile two-man teams of a reporter and the ever-present cameraman, or, in the case of radio, a single reporter. Because there is less diversity in reporting, TV and radio reporting tend to be quick and shallow.

TV and radio as the most popular media for news are formidable competitors for print journalists. Hawthorne points out, "There are no scoops anymore, no great challenge to get the story, because it's all so technologically fast." In a world addicted to entertainment, news is driven by presentation, not content..

Reading between the lines

Hawthorne goes on to highlight a new challenge for print's foreign reporters: balancing attractive presentation with in-depth coverage. "Papers and magazines are becoming more optically interesting, more user-friendly," he says. However, he also insists "there tends to be a lot more investigative reporting in newspapers and magazines, a lot more highly developed reporting and a lot more teamwork now. There is also more reporting on trends, rather than on instant events." As TV zooms in on events and visual drama, so print has become more specialised.

"The TV documentary is dead," says Botes. "Those who actively seek more knowledge about the world and how their country or business fits into it will be better served through print," writes Utley. "Because these people are likely to be the opinion-makers, public discussion of foreign affairs could improve."

And so TV will cater for audiences demanding instant updates, while print will zone in on users like a laser beam, boasting in-depth documentaries and interviews.

As media diversifies and specifies, so will its public, and foreign correspondents will need to don the coats of both generalist and expert.

This spells a return to the traditional role of the "adventurer-journalist" - the expert, in-field reporter - for print correspondents. It's also a new niche for print, and a potentially thrilling one. As Hawthorne says, grinning confidently, "TV provides short visual images, but in print you re-read it if you don't understand, and so remember better. It's also a window on the world which is cheaper than TV. Good newspapers and magazines still give you the political background. That's where we still have the edge." Now there's a boost in the right direction.